14 FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA 



flock of white-throats or snowbirds will fly 

 up one by one to gaze at the intruder. In 

 one place I hear the faint smooth-voiced 

 signals of a group of Swain son thrushes and 

 the chuck of a hermit. A few siskins (rarer 

 than usual this year, it seems to me) pass 

 overhead, sounding their curious, long-drawn 

 whistle, as if they were blowing through a 

 fine-toothed comb. Further up, I stand still 

 at the tapping of a woodpecker just before 

 me. Yes, there he is, on a dead spruce. A 

 sapsucker, I call him at the first glance. But 

 I raise my glass. No, it is not a sapsucker, 

 but a bird of one of the three-toed species ; 

 a male, for I see his yellow crown-patch. 

 His back is black. And now, of a sudden, 

 a second one joins him. I am in great luck. 

 This is a bird I have never seen before ex- 

 cept once, and that many years ago on Mount 

 Washington, in Tuckerman's Ravine. The 

 pair are gone too soon, and, patiently as I 

 linger about the spot, I see no more of them. 

 A pity they could not have broken silence. 

 It is little we know of a bird or of a man till 

 we hear him speak. 



At the lake there are certain to be num- 



